With the latest government measures, we are all back to work from home. It is of course positive that we can continue to work at home with tools such as Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, Outlook, etc. But all those (video) meetings can also be very tiring! And the great loss remains seeing your colleagues, informal conversations at the coffee machine or afterworks and team building activities. Many companies try to find creative solutions for this. We at Spikes do too!
The first initiative was to provide a weekly Spikes update. Every Monday at 4:30 PM, management organizes a short update on the state of affairs, new Corona rules on the work floor and HR provides some information about new employees, for example. To make this meeting not too official, some nice twists have been added!
Firstly, there is music on hold before the official meeting starts. You can do this very easily by indicating “Include system audio” when you share your screen! Spikees can make proposals via the meeting chat, with the help of the emoticons we can vote for each other’s proposals. In addition, the Raise hand function is also used during the meeting to enter into some interaction. Finally, to give it an informal touch, a Spikee regularly speaks. For example, to tell something about the Corona measures at a customer who is currently carrying out a project. Very interesting to hear all these stories!
In addition, we can participate in the Afternoon Tea (ms) twice a week. During these 15-30 minutes, anyone who just wants to relax can call in to have a nice, informal chat with other colleagues who are taking a break at the time. The rule is: you can talk about anything except work! There is only room for conversations that you would otherwise have at the coffee machine or water tap. A very nice way to keep those informal conversations and personal contact with colleagues!
We have also been busy when it comes to after-work activities! Our hapiness officer, Michelle, already organized several Living Room Quiz that our Spikees could follow from home, whether or not together with family members or roommates. A very handy tool that we used to keep this in the right direction is Kahoot!. She will then share the screen in a Teams meeting, we can use the Kahoot! app at home play along, and meanwhile have a nice chat in the meeting. Do you want a video or audio round in your quiz? Don’t forget to mark “Include system audio” when sharing your screen. Functions perfectly! If you prefer to organize this with Office 365 tools, take a look at Forms. Via the Forms app in Teams it is very easy to ask questions and hide the results until everyone has answered. Quiz fun guaranteed!
Under normal circumstances, Spikes organizes an evening of business and pleasure on location every trimester. However, the Corona crisis has already prevented this from happening this year. Getting together with all Spikees is not a matter of course. Fortunately, a creative solution was found: the online Spikes 1 Team event. The evening started with a few presentations from the management with a review and a preview of the activities. Then there was time for fun. The Spikees received a package with 3 beers and snacks from Hopviseur in advance. They could enjoy this during the presentation and afterwards I gave some extra explanation about the beers. An online beer tasting actually! It was a very nice evening in which we could reconnect with each other in a pleasant way. Although we hope that it can be done in person again soon.
Sara Immegeers
Business Innovation Consultant
